Quality Inspection Companies in China for Amazon FBA

Why do I even need an inspection? Can I ship my products to Amazon without Inspection?

You NEED inspection.

Why? Because:

1. Amazon may suspend your listing

This one is obvious.

If you send low quality products, people will refund them.

If your refund rate goes over 10% or more - depending on your product category - Amazon will suspend your listing and send you a warning. You may have to pull all the inventory out from Amazon to separate the defects. Then ship them back to Amazon. Doing this will eat all your profit margin, so you will be forced to just dispose the products. And even disposal is not free.

So just hire a pre-shipment inspector and avoid all this.

2. The nature of manufacturing process always yields some defects

Manufacturing process involves a lot of manual work, and people make mistakes.

It also involves machinery work, and machines do not watch for defects.

It's just a nature of life - not all things come out to be perfect. There is always a small defect rate in any manufacturing process.

You will want to hire an inspector, to pick out those defects and send only the highest quality units to Amazon.

3. Supplier may cut corners.

You probably received a few high quality samples. Looking at them, it seems like you made a great choice selecting a manufacturer, and you're ready to trust them. The real product can't be so different from the sample anyway..

Well.. there are many companies on Alibaba, who are not manufacturers themselves - they are trading companies. They resell from factories via Alibaba, as a third party reseller. Usually they try to hide the fact that they do not have their own factory, to keep you as a customer. Trading companies try to save money every way possible, and it's quite common that they send you a high quality sample for approval, while the actual shipment has low quality.

The reason is they use different places to make a sample vs a large order. Sample is made by hand, by someone who is in charge of making design samples. When you make the order, they send this sample to their chosen factory, and it all will then depend on your luck, if you get a good quality product in production or not.

If you work with a factory directly, the chance of this happening is lower, but it can still happen. Sometimes factory is low on workers, and will hire temporary workers when you place a larger order with them. New workers will not have the same experience as older ones, so the quality of their work will be lower.

To be sure of quality, just hire an inspection company.

p.s. I recommend avoiding trading companies and only working with factories directly.

How to tell if Alibaba supplier is a manufacturer or a trading company?

Basic Method

If this is the first time you're contacting a new supplier, and you're just starting to talk about basic things like price and minimum order quantity - it's enough to check on Alibaba listing, what business type your supplier has listed.

It will be displayed in their Company Profile section in Alibaba:

In this case, supplier has a factory where they produce some of their products (is Manufacturer), and for other products this supplier is a reseller (Trading Company).

You will not know which products they are manufacturing themselves. If you ask them, they are very likely to hide it from you, afraid to loose you as a customer.

Still, this type of supplier is OK to contact. They own a production line and they want to make the products most economical way for them - so they will try to utilize their factory as much as they can instead of buying elsewhere, to save money. This is good for you. You don't want to deal with resellers.

A reseller would look like this:

These guys are the honest kind. They plainly declare that they are just a reseller. Makes your task easier - just skip them.

Manufacturers will look like this:

This means they only sell what they produce in their own factory. This is awesome and what you want.

Advanced Method

Beware, that companies are half time honest, and half time not - when declaring the business type on Alibaba.

To know for sure, you will have to look up their business registration license on the Chinese AIC website (Industrial and Commercial Administration Bureau).

This is a painful method, but you may want to check that if you're planning to make a large order.

You may also want to know this information, to be able to negotiate the price - if you know they lied on their Alibaba listing, you may bring it up to push the price down. But I would just ditch all the liars.

I will now double check one of the suppliers I looked at above. Let's see if they are honest.

Company - Dongguan Cheng Wei Reflective Material Co., Ltd. - they said they are a Manufacturer.

To search on Chinese business directory, I need two things:

1. Name of province in China, where they are located

2. Company name in Chinese

To find the province name is very easy, just look up on Alibaba company profile:

Now, to find company name in Chinese is harder, but doable.

This company was easy because they listed their website under Contacts in Alibaba profile:

Most often, you will find their Chinese Company name in the footer of their website, and it often ends with symbol 司, meaning Ltd.

If there is no mention of 'manufacturing', 'processing' or 'producing' - it means they are just a trading company.

This company only has a license for sales, import and export. No manufacturing.

Baah.

So they lied on their Alibaba page.

Some red flags were:

Large number of very different products listed on Alibaba - usually manufacturers stick to similar items of the same kind.

Most manufacturers have license for trading, so on Alibaba they will often put 'Manufacturer, Trading Company'. This supplier put only 'Manufacturer', to fool buyers, who do not do their research.

No factory images, made by Alibaba On-site Verification Inspection. No production flow images. No Production Capacity. No Certificates.

It's usually hard to tell from their Alibaba page if they are lying or not. For example, this supplier had a verification service come to their facility, sent by Alibaba, and they confirmed all their info:

I am assuming they either bribed the inspector (common in China), or Alibaba verification data on the website is not presented well for inspectors, so they just Approve or Disapprove all info at once. But it makes you doubt everything, when Alibaba says it was verified. Don't be fooled. Trust only the business license.

"a startling 35 percent of companies in China pay bribes or give gifts in order to operate. One CFO went to so far as to describe the practice as an unspoken rule." (Forbes)

If I had started dealing with this supplier, and later found out about this situation, I would ask them straight - why your business license does not include manufacturing. If they would have no good reason, I would stop working with them.

Another company which I discussed above, was a trading company, and honestly admitted it. Their license says:

This was a long diversion, all to help you save money working directly with factories and avoid third parties.

Working directly with factories will yield better results in quality inspection, just because:

you will have one less intermediary to communicate through - less mistakes will be made;

trading companies like to buy from cheapest or untested suppliers, so quality is often an issue;

sample will be made by the same factory producing the bulk order (which is not the case with trading companies) - factory will know your requirements better, to produce a higher quality product.

Should I do inspection in USA or in China?

You have two choices:

1. Inspect all products yourself (so you will ship everything to your house, open every box and every sealed package, test each product unit, pack it back, seal the boxes, ship to Amazon) - way TOO MUCH WORK.

Or

2. Pay for inspector to go to your factory in China, and inspect each unit before they put them in packaging and seal the boxes. Very nice option.

When you have large shipments, don't bother shipping to your house - it will be waaay too much work for you. I am assuming you chose to use Amazon FBA service, because you're lazy to manually manage all shipments and returns for your product. Same thing with inspecting your units - why waste your time inspecting hundreds of items, when you can pay 0.20$ per unit to get it done by someone else, while you focus on more important things.

For a new product, if it's a small shipment of under 200 units - I would recommend to ship to your house first. You will want to see the products yourself, make sure everything is like you expected, inspect each unit, maybe keep a few at home for taking photos, keep a few more for giveaways, measure the packaging and enter to Amazon, test the products, etc.

What if I don't live in USA?

Sellers in USA have an advantage to receive their shipments to their own house and personally inspect products for defects and quality.

If you don't live in USA, but you're selling on Amazon.com using FBA option, you're in the same boat with me.

Being in Canada, I don’t have a luxury of receiving the shipment to my house. Importing to Canada first, and then sending to USA would incur double import taxes and high total costs in shipping.

The best strategy is this.

Get a full shipment inspection in China.

Then, ask your manufacturer to send you a post-inspection mini-shipment to your house, maybe 10-20 units. You can use those units for photos, giveaways, testing, selling locally etc. The rest of the shipment - send to Amazon FBA directly from China.

My manufacturer always produces extra units to replace defects found during inspection, and there is often some extras left. I have an agreement with them that this small leftover goes to my house in Canada. You could arrange something similar with your supplier.

How much does it cost to do product inspection in China?

For my products, it usually comes out to be around 0.20 USD per unit. Inspectors charge by the hour, so it will depend how much time it takes for them to check all your units.

My inspection company usually sends two inspectors to check 2000 units of my product, and they spend all day working on it. So I pay 400$ for full pre-shipment inspection to them.

When I enter inspection costs to my AMZPing app, it does not affect my profit margin too much:

With some sales, inspection costs are almost unnoticeable:

Totally worth it.

You could choose to do a partial inspection, where they only check 10% of the whole shipment. Then you would only pay about 100$ for this.

Should I get Full Inspection or Partial?

Imagine you have 1000 units ready for shipping.

Partial inspection will cost you around $100, and full inspection around $300 (actual prices will vary greatly, this is just for you to see the difference).

In my experience, partial inspection (checking 10% of all units ) does not work well.

Partial Inspection - Many Defects Found

1. You hire inspector to do partial inspection.

2. They check a sample size of 100 units, and find 15 with major defects.

Now what?

Does it mean out of 1000 there will be 150 defects? There could be. Or could be more. You will not know until you check.

You would have to order a full inspection now - to check the rest of the shipment and separate bad products.

..so you will be paying for inspection twice.

Partial Inspection - Few Defects Found

What if they do a partial inspection and find only very few bad ones? (almost never happens, but let's say it does)

That means you will be accepting that your shipment has a certain % of defective products, and you will be paying for everything to the factory anyway. You will also be knowingly sending some defective units to Amazon.

When customers receive bad units.. they will write bad reviews, and your rankings will drop.

My advice: Don't do it, just get the full inspection.

p.s. It's very rare to have few defects only, most of the time the defect rate will be above 5%. Keep this in mind, when deciding which type of inspection to choose.

Full Inspection

In full inspection, inspector will separate all defects from quality units.

Make an agreement with your supplier to either replace/fix defective products, or simply pay only for good ones to them. My manufacturer always makes some extra units, because they know during inspection some will surely be defective (that's the nature of manufacturing process), so they want to have some units ready for replacement.

Don't try to save money by doing only partial inspection - in the end, you will just waste your money this way. Cheap man pays twice.

How does it all work?

It will go pretty much like this:

You will order your product from manufacturer.

Factory will produce your units in around 30 days.

You will order an inspection from a third party inspection company.

Inspector will contact the factory to work out the details of where and when.

On the day of inspection, inspector will go to factory, and inspect the units for you.

He will separate all defects from good quality units.

Next day, he will send you a detailed report with images and stats on how many defects were major and minor

You will decide if you want the defective units replaced, reworked or simply excluded from shipment - you will communicate with your manufacturer about this.

After all defective units are replaced, you will prepare the shipping labels for FBA and ask manufacturer to ship them to your freight forwarder.

How does an Inspection report look like?

Here is a sample for you.

This inspection Failed.

It was a partial inspection. You see, when a partial inspection fails, you have to order a full inspection. Wasted money. I would never do a partial inspection.

The most interesting for me here are the pictures of the factory itself, it's curious to see where things happen.

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You get 42 pages for a partial inspection from this inspector. Awesome. They do so much work for $100! Inspectors probably sleep afterwards.

For more samples, see my list of inspection companies below - each company will have their sample report attached.

Payment Terms - best arrangement if there is an inspection

When I do my orders with factories, I always negotiate 30% upfront payment, with 70% after the inspection.

I think this is the best way to work - factory has enough cash to buy the materials, and you have a smaller risk if anything goes wrong with the quality.

There was one time I ordered an inspection, and out of 1000 units 600 were defective. Factory took another two weeks to produce replacement units for those 600 and they also covered my cost for a second inspection. If I would have paid them 100% in advance, they would not have been so motivated to fix it quickly and even cover my 2nd inspection costs. They were keen to receive the rest of their money.

30% upfront and 70% later is the way to go. It's pretty standard practice as well. If there is a big problem with the quality - you can decide not to proceed with the order, and keep your 70%. Well, you will have to discuss this with your factory.

Be nice - they are working hard for you. And they need to eat.

One exception to 30/70.

If the order is less than $1500 total, I think it does not make sense to split it into two payments - the wire transfer fees are too high for small amounts like this. I usually just pay everything upfront, if it's a small amount.

How do I choose a product inspection company?

First, check where your factory is located, and find an inspection company based in the same province in China.

Otherwise, you will pay extra fees to cover travel costs and hotel for the inspector.

This can be very costly!

Look at this example:

Your inspector will have to travel a long road to get to your factory... He will most likely take a train, and later stay at a cheap hotel in Xiamen. You will be charged maybe $300 for inspection and extra $300 for travel costs. And the funny thing is, they will not try to explain this situation to you, or tell you how far your factory is from their office. They will just assume this is exactly what you want. So don't fall into this trap.

I divided my list of inspection companies by the region that they have office in.

Here we go.

Quality Inspection Companies in Beijing & Hebei Province

Beijing is most famous for electronics factories, manufacturing mobile phones and computers.

It is surrounded by Hebei province (capital Shijiazhuang), where they have a lot of heavy industries, especially metallurgy - manufacturing steel products, wire mesh, casting etc.

If your factory is in the area of Hebei province, you can use these quality inspection agents:

Guangdong province has a lot of garment and textile factories. They're also known for manufacturing toys and electronics, furniture, household items, and much more - basically they are one of the largest manufacturing provinces in China.

If your factory is based in Guangdong province, it will be most convenient for you to choose an inspection agency from one of these four cities: Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan or Shenzhen:

Quality Inspection Companies in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is most famous for manufacturing Electronics and Textile products.

It is an autonomous region, with its own administrative rules. On its border with China, Hong Kong has a big fence and customs checkpoints - just like a separate country would.

So if your factory is located in Hong Kong, you will be looking for an inspection company located in Hong Kong, to avoid the border crossing.

Of course, if you choose an inspector from neighbor region Shenzhen, he can cross the border easily (total distance from Shenzhen to Hong Kong is one hour drive), but it takes a long time to wait in line at the border and you will have to cover the costs. Better not to bother. Just find an inspection company in Hong Kong itself.

What suppliers do with defects? Do they take them home?

I like listening to podcasts when I am doing something brainless, like washing dishes or waiting in line at the bank. They have a lot of good info.

InTouch Quality - Many Episodes. This is a great podcast about quality inspections in China. They cover topics like 'What do suppliers do with rejected products', 'Why most importers don't rely on factory QC staff for inspection', '4 Telltale signs of a bad supplier'. I love this podcast.

Global From Asia - Episode 58. Chinese Factory Inspections, Tips, Tricks and Insights. This is a nice podcast covering many things on importing from China, and this episode focuses on product inspection.

I am the founder of Shopkeeper and an Amazon seller myself. When I started selling on nine different Amazon marketplaces, including Amazon Japan, I realized there were no software tools on the market which would sum up my sales from all countries. I also did not like the cluttered, spreadsheet look of
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